A worker decided to leave his job after receiving a payment that was 330 times his regular salary, and later successfully defended his right to keep the money in a legal battle.
The individual, employed at the Consorcio Industrial de Alimentos de Chile, was mistakenly given 165 million Chilean pesos (£126,860) instead of his usual 500,000 pesos (£385) in May 2022 due to an administrative error by the company. Following the discovery of the error, the company requested the employee, who served as an office assistant, to refund the amount, claiming he had agreed to do so in a meeting with HR.
However, three days after the request, the employee resigned without returning the funds. Subsequently, the corporation filed a lawsuit against him, alleging theft, which led to a three-year legal dispute.
If found guilty of theft, the worker could have faced fines and a potential jail term of up to 540 days. Nevertheless, in September, judges in Santiago, Chile, dismissed the accusations, stating that the individual had not committed theft but had engaged in an “unauthorized collection.”
Since the court did not view the incident as theft, no charges could be pursued, according to Diario Financiero. Despite the court’s ruling, the company expressed its intention to appeal the decision in pursuit of recovering the money.
In a statement, the Food Industrial Consortium declared, “The Food Industrial Consortium will pursue all available legal remedies, particularly an appeal for annulment, to challenge the verdict.” This announcement followed reports of a teacher in Germany who took sick leave for 16 years, receiving her full annual salary of £48,000 without detection by the school authorities.
The biology and geography teacher went on leave in August 2009 due to chronic health issues and psychological concerns. She was supposed to undergo a medical evaluation after a three-month absence, which never occurred, and her sick leave was routinely extended for almost two decades.
According to Bild, the teacher reportedly earned between €5,051 (£4,369) and €6,174 (£5,341) monthly. Her situation remained unnoticed until a change in management in 2024, when an internal review exposed the oversight that had persisted for twenty years.
Dorothee Feller, the education minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, remarked, “I have numerous inquiries as I have never encountered a case like this before.” An assessment is now scheduled to evaluate the teacher’s health condition.